Bark River-Harris junior Kaet Erickson (7) taps the ball past the outstretched hands of Iron Mountain’s Macy Linsenbigler (18) during a Division 3 District semifinal game on Nov. 6, 2024 at Mountaineer Gym in Iron Mountain. (Sean Chase/Daily News)

IRON MOUNTAIN — Although the regular season wasn’t kind to the Iron Mountain varsity volleyball team, the playoffs are a chance to start fresh.

That seems to be exactly what the Mountaineers needed as they kicked off the MHSAA Division 3 District 66 semifinals with a 3-0 (25-22. 25-17, 25-19) win over Bark River-Harris at Mountaineer Gym on Wednesday.

“I told them, ‘A lot of this is getting the ball in the court. Let our defense play defense,'” IM head coach Jeanne Newberry said. “You can’t play a ball that goes into the net, so we were discussing that throughout the week. … This was a great confidence builder for my team.”

The Mountaineers listened to their coach and it paid off. They came to the service line 72 times in the contest and only committed eight service errors.

“We, probably, had one of our better serving nights,” Newberry said.

Earlier in the week, Newberry called up four players from the Mountaineers’ JV squad and it paid off at the service line.

“I brought up some underclassmen and they were kind of a big asset,” Newberry said. “They were learning the system as we played the game and I thought they really made an effort to concentrate on their serving.”

Emma Bouchard was one of those players. She ended the game with only two service errors on 11 attempts.

After trading the first two points in the opening set, Iron Mountain sent senior Juliana Tapio to the stripe. She held serve for seven straight points while Macy Linsenbigler recorded two kills and Bella Person added three. As a result, the Mountaineers held an 8-1 advantage in the first frame.

“Our goal was to start off strong and to get ahead by a lot,” Linsenbigler said. “We didn’t get down (on ourselves.) We were all excited, communicating. It was all good.”

Iron Mountain kept the pressure on and nine points later in the set. However, Bark River-Harris wasn’t going down without a fight. Junior Kaiya Davis kicked off the Broncos’ rally with a thunderous kill that found its way through the IM defense. Senior Hope Varoni got in on the action, tallying two late kills. But an attack error from Bark River sealed the deal and the Mountaineers took the set, 25-22.

After a slow start, the Broncos came into the second set looking rejuvenated and quickly jumped ahead 3-1 as sophomore Stella Rebitzke notched an ace.

Bark River used two kills from Kaiya Davis and another from Varoni to extend its lead to four points. However, the Broncos didn’t have an answer for Linsenbigler, Zahra Wicks and Bella Person.

Wicks and Person kicked off the comeback with a clutch block.

“She’s so talented,” Newberry said. “You take her wing span and put it next to Bella (Person) and they’ve got three-fourths of the net covered. … I’m very proud of her.”

Then Linsenbigler added four kills to her total and the lead changed hands for the first time in the second set.

Once the Mountaineers had control, they rolled to a 25-17 win in the frame.

Iron Mountain jumped out to two five-point leads in the third frame. However, unforced errors allowed the Broncos back into the game as they cut the lead to one, 11-10.

With the Mountaineers on their backfoot, things could have taken a turn, especially as they gave up a point late in the set on a missed toss.

“We got called for a missed toss,” Newberry said. “You can only do that one time. When you have that toss in that rotation, in this game, you can only do it once. You can do it again in the next set. But you can’t do it back-to-back.”

While that could have been catastrophic for Iron Mountain, Linsenbigler got things back on track with a thunderous swing.

“When she puts that ball down, even in practice when I see it, it’s exciting,” Newberry said. “It truly is.”